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Thursday, March 24, 2011

Garbage

It is nice to be home. I woke up a few times last night wondering where I was. I am so happy we cleaned everything before we left because it was totally worth it when I walked in the door yesterday afternoon and everything was nice and clean. I do miss Japan though and since I got the video working I wanted to post about the trash.

One of the hardest things to get used to in Japan was the garbage. All the garbage is separated in Japan. They have combustibles (things that will burn), non-combustibles (razor blades), plastics, and recyclables (bottles cans etc.). Even now I am not sure if I have the categories exactly right. Some things were supposed to be in clear bags and other in white see through bags. It doesn't sound that confusing but it really did get tricky for us when we weren't sure where somethings went, like diapers. In our apartment we had to separate everything out. So if we wanted to throw away an old sandwich that was in a baggie we had to first take the gross sandwich out of the bag, put it in the combustible bin and then take the baggie and put it in the plastic bin. Restaurants were tricky because we had to separate our trays when we threw things away. Most of the time they just had signs and no pictures so we resorted to looking into the garbage and trying to match what was in it. I know I got it wrong a few times. Now that we are back in America it is a little bit of a habit to break. A couple days ago I found myself gathering up just the plastic garbage to throw away.

The two main garbage bins in our apartment. Tucker even got the hang of it. Every time he threw something away he would ask if it went in the paper garbage or the not paper garbage. At home we have a garbage with a lid so with no lid on these Penelope spent a lot of time going through, taking things out, and eating the garbage.

Almost everyday was a garbage day, Monday combustibles, Tuesday something else, Wednesday plastics, Thursday combustibles again you get the hang of it. and i love the garbage truck. I saw, or I should say, heard it during my first week and thought it was the most bizarre thing. It plays music! Seriously I thought the ice cream truck was coming and went out onto the balcony and realized the guy was picking up garbage. In this video it is a little hard to hear because of the traffic but you should be able to pick it out pretty well at around 14 seconds. Also notice the one small garbage that is for our whole apartment? That would never fly in America.